


The world will never ever be the same

by NeverAndAlways



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Childbirth, Established Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens), Gen, Kid Fic, M/M, Mpreg, Not Beta Read, Not Canon Compliant, Parents Aziraphale and Crowley (Good Omens), Pregnant Crowley (Good Omens), Trans Crowley (Good Omens)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-20
Updated: 2019-12-20
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:41:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21554884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NeverAndAlways/pseuds/NeverAndAlways
Summary: If you like the story, please leave a comment -- I'd love to hear from you!
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 171





	The world will never ever be the same

Crowley goes into labor with his daughter in the wee hours of the morning. Zachariah (twelve years old now, when did that happen?) has been staying with Newt and Anathema for two days already. They're the only people he really trusts to look after Zach. Aziraphale calls him a mother hen.

Anyway.

Aziraphale sleeps through the first few hours of it. A deep, solid sleep; he's only been sleeping for a few years now, but he's found he quite likes it. And he's a heavy sleeper, too. Crowley has to jostle him a bit to wake him up. When he does wake, he sits bolt upright.

"Crowley? What's wrong?" his voice is soft and rusty with sleep. Crowley's sitting on the edge of the bed, leaning back on his hands.

"Baby's finally made up her mind."

The bedside lamp flicks on. Crowley blinks in the light.

"Contractions? Or did your water break?" it's impressive how quickly Aziraphale can go from a dead sleep to wide awake.

"Contractions," says Crowley. "Eight minutes each."

Aziraphale sighs a little. "Alright...well, thank you for waking me. I don't think there's much to do yet but wait."

"I know, that's all I've _been_ doing." Crowley pulls himself upright with the help of the bedpost and idly massages his back. He catches Aziraphale looking him up and down. "...What?"

"Nothing. It's exciting, that's all."

Crowley grumbles, but he only half means it.

* * *

The next few hours, Crowley alternates between sitting and pacing. The contractions are restless. As dawn sneaks up on them, he walks endless laps of the main room and climbs up and down the stairs more times than he can count. Seems to be just the opposite of his labor with Zach; now that it's hit its stride, his body is wasting no time. By 7:00 am, the contractions take his feet out from under him and he has to concentrate just to finish a sentence. By 10:00, he can't speak through them at all.

He's in the bathroom, sitting on the edge of the tub; he'd meant to get in the tub, but his legs are wobbly. Aziraphale's standing in the doorway; he wants to be close to Crowley, but the demon's made it abundantly clear that he needs his space. They've been talking about nothing in particular. When Crowley trails off in mid-sentence, Aziraphale leans on the doorframe and counts the seconds in his head until he sees Crowley relax again. Then he crouches in front of him.

"Crowley. Can you look at me, love?"

Crowley opens his eyes and looks. Aziraphale smiles gently.

"Why don't I run that bath for you now, hm?"

Crowley nods.

* * *

Crowley stays in the bath most of the morning, and into the afternoon. Aziraphale leaves him alone; there's not much he can do, and Crowley snips at him when he asks. But he does use a minor miracle to reheat the water every couple hours.

Contractions are three minutes when Crowley emerges at half-past noon. Aziraphale helps him towel off and get into a clean nightshirt, then Crowley's off to wander the house. The angel stays closer now; Crowley's not as steady on his feet, and he doesn't want him falling. He paces around the flat, then gets bored and moves to the bookshop. Aziraphale is quietly glad that he thought to close.

Eventually Crowley's wanderings bring him to a little reading room just off the back of the shop. Small, windowless, and cozy. Plenty of chairs and poufs. He settles there. Aziraphale doesn't bother trying to move him. When he's sure Crowley's comfortable and not going anywhere, he runs to collect pillows and blankets and towels and their homebirth kit.

When he left the room, Crowley was sitting on a pouf. When he returns, Crowley's leaning up against a table. Aziraphale pauses in the doorway with his armful of supplies and just looks for a moment. The baby's so low, it makes his belly look smaller. Won't be much longer now. He knocks on the doorframe to announce his presence, pads in and starts to arrange the pillows and blankets. Crowley wanders into his field of view after a moment. He's upright, but his legs clearly aren't happy about it.

"Hello," says Aziraphale.

"Mmh," says Crowley.

"How do you feel, my dear?"

Crowley gives a noncommittal grunt in response. "Contractions are two minutes."

Aziraphale's heart -- or at least something in that vicinity -- does a little somersault. Somehow he keeps his voice level and says mildly. "Good. That's good." Crowley says nothing and starts to wander away again. "Is there anything I can do?"

"You can stop talking," Crowley says, rather more sharply than he meant. He adds on a quick "no offense".

So Aziraphale shakes his head and doesn't speak, and Crowley wanders on.

* * *

Things progress quickly from there, to Aziraphale's relief. Until they don't. Crowley stalls out right at the edge of ten centimeters, for over an hour. Progress just...stops. He rattles around the tiny room, getting more and more anxious with every contraction that doesn't go anywhere. Aziraphale's about ready to step in and either talk him down from the ledge or call a doctor when Crowley suddenly freezes. Up against a bookcase, hanging onto a shelf, and an odd look comes over his face -- Aziraphale can clearly see his slit pupils dilate to round. And before he can ask what's happening, there's a steady trickling sound that draws their eyes down to the carpet.

"Ah." says Aziraphale. "Well, no point in wearing those pants, now." Crowley mutters an apology, which he waves away. "The books are fine, dear. It's you I'm worried about."

Crowley's already pushing away from the shelf and trying to throw his sweatpants off. Aziraphale steps in, and it's a bit of balancing act; Crowley leaning on Aziraphale who's in turn leaning on the bookshelf, trying to help Crowley peel off the now-sodden pants. And to top off the whole situation, once the pants are off and kicked away across the floor, Crowley has another contraction. He drags Aziraphale down to the floor with him and just clings until it's over, then hisses for Aziraphale to help him to the couch. He does, with surprising ease; the demon doesn't sit on the couch itself, but reclines against it on the floor. Reaches down between his legs for a moment, then puts his hand on his belly. Aziraphale realizes, as another contraction rolls through, that Crowley is holding his breath, and he's tensing up in a very particular way. He reaches for the homebirth kit.

"I'm sure you've noticed, but you're pushing on your own already."

"Yeah. Caught that," Crowley pants. He spreads his knees wider, trying to shift some of the pressure, and grimaces.

"Just like last time. I don't think I need to say any more?"

The demon shakes his head, and then he's off -- puts his chin to his chest and pushes. Automatically, Aziraphale goes to hold one of his legs back, and he gets swatted away. Crowley grabs his own leg behind the knee and hauls it back. So Aziraphale just reaches for the towels.

It only takes a few minutes of breathe, push, repeat before he's crowning. Much faster than Zach was. But then he stays there. The baby's head just hangs between crowning and coming out for ages. He changes positions several times -- drags himself up onto his hands and knees, leans back so he's squatting with one hand on the couch, even kneels for a while. He's getting frustrated.

"Crowley, are you alright?"

"I'm _fine --"_

He takes a breath and pushes, but stops after just a few seconds.

"...Crowley?"

"She's stuck. I think."

"She's..?" suddenly Aziraphale's chest feels tight. He gives himself a mental shake. "Alright, alright...you feel that she's stuck?"

"Yes, that's what I fucking _said,_ Angel." 

"Well, ah -- stop pushing, for one --"

"What do you mean stop, I can't just _stop,_ I'm not exactly an active participant here, my body is gonna do this whether I'm onboard or not --"

Aziraphale mumbles a very soft sorry, and just examines Crowley through another contraction or three. Crowley pushes a few times on his own; he says sorry in between, but Aziraphale waves it off, they both know there's no stopping it. The demon stops to rest in between contractions, and it's clear he's flagging a bit.

"Angel, either fucking _do_ something, or tell me what's going on, please."

"Well, she's moving down. It's slow; very slow. But there's progress, at least? If...if this keeps up, I'm going to just -- I'll miracle this away, put her back on track. Alright?"

Crowley smirks in spite of himself. "You'd never get away from the paperwork." then he lets out a little urgent sound. Aziraphale's name might be in there somewhere. The angel gently shushes him.

"You're alright, you're alright...her head's making its way down, Crowley."

"Not bloody fast enough."

For the next half hour, Crowley only pushes with every other contraction. Trying to rest a little and let his body take over. He settles for squatting in front of the couch, and Aziraphale rubs gentle circles into the demon's legs to stop them shaking. It's the same back-and-forth as before; he thinks he might go crazy. He's beyond frustrated, and way beyond tired -- he pushes so hard at one point that it makes him lightheaded and he almost loses his balance. Aziraphale reaches out to steady him.

"Alright, Crowley, why don't you lie back..."

Getting him into a comfortable position takes a minute, and the extra movement triggers a contraction as soon as he's situated. It's a bad one; Crowley grabs Aziraphale by the shirt, buries his face in his shoulder, and yells openly into the fabric as he bears down. But he feels it as soon as it happens -- an immediate sense of relief, and the enormous pressure that's been splitting him in half is _gone._ Aziraphale gently extracts himself from Crowley's grasp, looks down, and his face splits into a smile.

"Well, hello, little one! There you are." he looks at the demon and adds, "she's blonde, Crowley." Crowley smiles a little. Reaches down to feel, but his hands are shaking. So Aziraphale takes his hand, guides him where it should be, and their fingers overlap for a moment. "She's a bit smaller than Zachariah was."

Crowley traces his fingers over the baby's hair, her ears, her nose. "Wouldn't know it," he murmurs. "You put up a fight, didn't you, little lady."

"Well, it's not over yet, dear," Aziraphale reminds him. He helps Crowley sit up a little, takes a deep breath, nudges the demon's knees a little farther apart. "Push with all you've got, Crowley."

It takes another ten minutes after that. Nearly fifteen. Crowley doesn't move his hand from the baby's head the entire time. She inches forward -- one shoulder comes, then the other -- then Crowley gasps out "angel --", suddenly bends forward around his belly and reaches down with his other hand. Aziraphale hooks his hands under the baby's arms as they come free, and the adrenaline rush feels like an electric shock. Her cord is short, so he has to set her on Crowley's stomach instead of his chest, but she's whole and healthy and _yowling_ as soon as she takes her first breath. Aziraphale's back in business mode immediately, fumbling for towels. Crowley grabs the towel from him and starts to rub the baby off with it. As he sits up, he carefully cradles her in his lap -- that muscle memory is still there, even twelve years later.

"Well, you're a loud one, aren't you?" he murmurs. She lets out a squawk of tiny anger when the towel brushes against her face. Crowley laughs to himself. "Oh, I know. The indignity of it all. Just terrible."

Aziraphale smiles secretly. After 6,000 years, an apocalypse, and one surly teenage son, it really shouldn't surprise him that Crowley has a soft heart under all those scales. And yet it does, every time. Really, he wouldn't have it any other way.

oOo

**Author's Note:**

> If you like the story, please leave a comment -- I'd love to hear from you!


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